twin screen technical progression
I started by making two squares
l learnt from the lesson how to make the two squares move through the frame through time. this was done via changing the position vector in the tab for each object and using keyframes to put it's position in time.
i then learnt how to paste pictures i found online into my project through saving an importing them, i then learn i could change these pictures positions and SCALES, from this i learnt the importance of using the SHIFT key for keeping things to scale within itself so the pictures don't look warped, this was usefull later on.
the next thing i learnt was how to use masks. this was done via a text reveal. the mask i learnt was used to block out a selected layer to create spaces and reveals. i also learn you could use the position key frames and opacity key frames to effect how the mask reveals the layer.
i was interesting how each mask had a different colour meaning you could use lots at the same time.
phil then said something with stuck with me for the whole project. "after effects is photoshop over time" .....this is when i started thinking about how i could use the skills i just learnt for a small self created project. i liked the idea of shapes interacting, they reminded me of cells so i decided to make a project of the virus like nature of ideas.
first using my photoshop skills i cut out a picture of a virus cell i downloaded online, (i learnt to used the google search to only look for large photos so the resolution is good)
i then found i background i background which fitted the theme and gave a methphorical meaning to the virus cell being there.
i then used the position vectors to make the cell orbit the earth. i then talked to phill. firstly he showed me how to use the graph to give the movement of the object a momentum, using sign waves to create a fluid movement. I then asked he how i could make the cell look like it's disapearing behind the earth. he told me we would have to use a mask attached to the the cell.
I realized though that the mask would have to move as the cell when behind the earth so it revealed the right side of the cell. so i had to go through frame by frame moving the mask into the correct position. after this i looped it so it would go around a few times.
the final thing i did was use a glow effect which phill told me about to great the light of the earth.
this are the settings to create the masks properties which i changed about to get the look i wanted
this is the shape layer i put behind the earth which i put the glow effect on. the shape moved to create a wobble.
I then move onto the next scene of the project, for this bit i wanted to practice with effects. i wanted to show the virus absorbing the book. the effect i chose was liqify
this i what the book looked like with the effect. i then learnt that you could adjust the strength of effects and other features of effects. I played around with these effects to try and get the particals go into the virus
i leant you could keyframe the levels of effects as well and have real control of how the effect works. i was succefull of slowly moving the particals to look like they were getting absorbed by the cell. i got a greater understanding of effects. i would practice with lots of other after this.
this was me practicing with the warp effect for another scene.
For the next session we learnt to rotoscope. this was alot of fun and was a good skill to learn for green screening.
the first thing we learnt was to key out selected colours. we did it with a video then placed our own backgrounds behind it. it wasn't to difficult but made me realise how important having a well lit backdrop is for green screening. it was intresting expoloring this idea of photoshop through time. i also played around with opasity of layers to create and almost true dective style piece.
i practiced with a found clip as well
i found you could do similar things with no green screen footage but it never looked so good. this is when i learnt how to rotoscope.
this is when your use a select tool to grab the part of the piece of film you want. this was similar to the magic brush tool in photoshop. i was starting to get the photshop over time thing.
i learnt pretty quickly that you couldnt use poor quality footage as i wouldnt regonise the shapes properly. i learnt that cartoons were good practice for rotoscoping as they had stong edges and colours and were often go quality. I ended up making this
i was happy with this outcome. i was happy with my progress with rotoscoping. it was just a prossess of slowly going through the video frame by frame selecting parts i wanted.
moving onto my real project
at this point i had a clear idea of what i wanted my project to be. "personality disorders online"
I had an idea for what i wanted it too look like visually. i wanted a drawn style background. so i thought about photoshop but decided that illustrator would work best
this was my first attempt at making lines on illustrator. i realised quickly i needed tutorials. so i went on lynda
from this video i learnt the importance of using vector graphics in after effects as it meant you could re size without lose of quality.
i also learnt how to draw lines with the adding a changing of anchor points.
this is the man i drew via vector drawing
but for the background i wasnt happy with the effect it had. it wasnt freeform enough.
this is when i got a graphic tablet out from uni
i realized that drawing with the graphics tablet had a much more a much more natural look and the lines had more depth
these are the lines a drew to practice using the graphics tablet.
i realised that i didnt know how to join the lines so i looked at tutorials on youtube. i needed to create whole shapes
this taught me to use the shift and alt keys to join together the lines.
i then started working on making difrent shapes using the paintbrush tool
i was working on different thicknesses of lines to add demention to the piece. something i learnt from a tutorial looking into simpsons drawings.
i work also with using duplication and reflection to give lines parnerships like in the bottom picture.
at this point i had a few ideas for scenes i wanted to do
i wanted the scenes to have a methaphrical meaning from the interactions of shapes which related to the disorder.
my main issue was depth. the pictures looked very basic when put onto the screen.
i gave the image more depth than this but still the drawing wasnt working. i decided to go even futher into the use of imagery and do something which worked with the simplicity and not try and make whole worlds like in "the world of tommorow"
i started with a two face for the paranoid picture
i did lots of diffrent versions but ended up liking this one the most. this was taken from inspiration from theatrea masks
but again i wasnt happy. it didnt have the look i wanted for the message. i thought back to my other work a realised that i had lived with the idea of photoshop through time. i decided to go back to this idea. i tried with a diffrent disorder.
i found the image on the internet which most reflected the topic i wanted. i found the largest picture i could get and took the components out which i liked. i did this on photoshop with the magic brush tool and quick selection tool.
i then drew to hands in illustrate and put that and the mountain into after effects
i hated it. it looked all wrong and really didnt represnt what i wanted to show. i decided the only bit i liked was the mountain and the man. i decided at this point that collage was gonna be my visualation style. i thought of people who did similar things in animation. i thought about terry guilliam from monty python
i really liked this style of cut out animation and wanted to replicate the style a bit in my work. i also liked the out of place style and the abusurdness this is what i wanted mine to be like but with a hint of methphorical clarity.
now was the point to start making the scenes. i had a kinda brief plan of what i wanted but i wanted alot of ideas to come as i was working
i started by finding the elements i wanted.
these were either backgrounds which i got the biggest i could and just inserted into the piece and rescaled using the shift key to keep it constant.
or with indicidual objects i would insert them into photoshop and with either the magic brush or magic select get the part of the image i wanted. saved it and then put it onto after effects
with some of the objects i changed the colours in photoshop to make sure they didnt mix to much with the background ....most notiable was the paranoid one with the factory background mixing into the space background. i had to change the contrast and brightness to make it stand out.
this image represent the divide between the bully and the bullied and the diffrent levels
(this was just created by using diffrent positions to create the illusion of 3d)
the bubble in this image represents isolation and shyness from others
(this one i used colour and oppasity to create this reflected feel)
the hands represent love and conection in this piece broken by a border
(this one required cutting each hand out indiudaul from a single photo)
the cliff face represents the struggles and falls living with someone who is dependent on you
(this one required colour correction and pairing of the objects to make the connect. ie the chain.)
the lips in this piece represent lust and the circling the need for attention
(this one required gride lines to make sure they were equally spaced)
the mirror represents self obsession and the podum self promtion
(this one required alot of work with photoshop to cut out the mirror)
the straightness and simetary represents order and the white cleaniness
(this one i had to place perfectly and spent along time finding the right photos)
the newpaper represents reading into things and the brains represent the idea of seeing other peoples thoughts
(this one i had to cut the words out of the newpaper so i could animate them later and make the come out of the page, also the brains needed to be placed and rotated)
the hands represent conection and the man on the mountain represent being far away and alone from the connection
(*this one lost the media when i took the picture.....but this required the use of colour changing on the hands. i practiced using masks to make the hand shake look real but i wasnt happy with it)
these are the basic meanings behind the imagery. there are more deeper meanings in each piece but i prefer to leave that to interpretation.
technical speaking the collage effect was just made through cuting and pasting the images together. there was work with some images with colour and rescaling but most were just placed on. i did to a bit of colour correction on some.
animating
one thing i learnt to do was precompose....this was needed when i had to make more than one object more at the same time. it got very complicated and it meant i had to be careful that i did the things how i wanted before i precomposed
when it came to writing the speach bubbles i mostly wrote on the spot but i had done research into the situation of personaility disorders online and knew i had a good understanding on the sort of things they would write.
now i will tell how i animated each piece individually
with this piece the first thing i did was animate the movement of the islands. i did this with the postion keyframes. i made the timings for each movement similar but not exactly the same so it didnt look robotic. i then made the people on the island match the movement, i did this by copying the movement vector for the island the were on and doing it for the people. then using the same times.
the other thing i did was insert and speach bubble which i had to animate to follow the man aswell. in the speach bubble i put text which i put a "typewriter" effect on. i then precomposed the bubble so i could easily move it with the person
last thing i did was increase the scale of the background so it looked like it was morphing over time.
with this piece the first thing i did was do the movement of the bubble and the man and speach bubble. i copied the movement vector for each so the stayed together.
the next thing i did was do a keyframe for the opacity of the bubble. this meant it was less opace near the people and more futher away. so the man could be seen far away but not close.
the other thing i did was the precomposition and type writer effect for the bubble.
then i focused on the people. i gave them a lens blur effect which decressed intesity as the bubble came towards them. i also made the people scale up as the bubble cam towards them. the lens blurs i had to try lots of diffrent effects till i found the one which worked.
for this piece i worked with movement first. i made the hands move together perfectly. i worked backwards to make this look smooth and gave the hands a regular speed.
the first thing i tried is in the botom picture. i was trying to see if i could use a mask to get the person to cut the arm. i did try and looked at some tutorials but what i tried didnt look very good so decided to use an effect. i found the slice effect. i positioned the 2 points in the place i wanted and keyframed the movment of the slice to come after the animated text i did. the text worked similary to how i had done it before but this time i used fade in and outs using opasity key framed and two speach bubble layers.
this piece was all about getting the movement correct.
other things i did do was get the clouds to move down in the background to create this sinking feeling.
i also used the type writer effect and precomposition speach bubble.
when it came to movment i had to make sure the chain stayed in the same place. the problem was i couldnt precompose the objects as they didnt look natural sliding of the hill. i there for had to do everything by eye. this meant the man i moved first. then i did the position keyframes for the first bit of chain making sure it stayed on the man in the same place. this meant i did alot of keyframes. i also had to rotate the chain as it moved down so it looked natural. then i moved onto the persons feet. they had to follow aswell and i have to be really carefull the chains matched up so i made sure i moved it by the end of the chain. it ended up looking smooth.
the main thing i did in this piece was the rotation of the people.
the other thing i did was the changing of the backgrounds. this was done by slowly highering the oppasity of the top background layer and letting the back one show through.
with the movement i realised i had to make sure they all moved at exactly the same speed and same distence from the lips. issue was doing this indivudualy was tricky and took a long time. i had to make sure the curves of movment were exactly the same otherwise it would look jagged.
i dicided i had to precompose them and move them together. the issue there however was they didnt stay up right. so then i decided i had to rotate the people individually through time. for example at 2 secs 90degree rotation at 4 secs 180 degree rotation. then i had to do this for each person. then when i precompsed them togther a rotated them all around the lips they stayed upright.
for this piece i used alot of effects.
first effect i used was a fade in using oppasity over time and also paired that with a blurr effect which degcressed intensity over time. i then had the people fade in using opasity keyframes. i then used the typewriter effect and precompositioning and opasity to create them popping in and out. i then used fade out and blur again for the changing of the peoples positons. and then a blur for the end.
the main thing i learnt from this was using the intensitys of the effects to compliment the meanings and using keyframes to give the effects weight. as can be seen i worked alot with the relationships between blur and oppasity in this piece.
this piece was pretty simple
the man was keyframe to appear in using oppasity and the typewriter effect precomposition
and when it came to the movment i just used rotation around the axis and made sure the where straight using gridlines and my eye.
the only thing i did which was difficult was cutting out the trees. i had to do alot of looking at after effects to see where there was sit unwanted background and cutting it out in photoshop.
for this piece most of the diffuclt stuff was in the cutting and pasting as the shapes were very fiddly and it took a while to select what i wanted. then i also had to work with colours to make it not get lost in the background. it worked though as this is my aesthetically fav piece.
the only other thing i did was the fade in of the speach bubble and use of type writter effect. i had to be carefull to make sure the writting was neat and didnt ruin the framing.
this composition has a few different things going on. first thing is the brains slowly appear. i did this through opposity key framing. i made sure it fitted with the pace of the typing. the other thing i did was animate the typing to go at diffrent speeds for the diffrent things said. i also used precompositions to create the fade outs
the last thing i did was cut out the writting in photoshop and then paste it back onto the page in affter effects. this to a bit of maniplation to make it fit as the page had been changed to fit the frame. this required putting the object in free transform. once it fitted i then could use keyframing and increase scale to make it pop out of the page.
this piece took a while for me to be happy with it. i tried lots of diffrent things to make the hands connect. i tried making it look like the hands where shaking using indiviudal position keyframes for each layer but it looked false. i then tried using masks but didnt like the idea of that. i ended up just similfying it and have the hands just be placed side by side. i think it looks alot better because i simplified it. with the other things all i did was the same fade in precomposition type writter effect for the speach bubble.
putting things together
it was now time to put the composition together.
i had gone filmed ethan by the computer and the sound of the keyboard tapping
i decided i like the two colour screens the most as it had a almost twin screen quality in itself.
i had to clip the piece inside after effects so learn control shift d to split clips.
i didnt want any effects on this
i then did the same with sound
the only thing i wanted on the video clip was writing saying what the personality disorder was. i did this on the big compositon of all the videos together in a big after effects file. this meant i could match the writing to the clip. it took a while to get the writing looking good and cented and have it fit with the other screen.
i then had all the clips in the order i wanted which took a while to see what worked well together. i then decided i didnt want the sound as after a while it became very distracting from the piece and i didnt want that.
i then rendered in after effects. in the settings recomended. the problem was the file was huge. this meant it couldnt even be put on my external hard drive. i then through talking to ethan decided to use premiere pro instead to export. this meant just importing the after effects whole file into premier pro and exporting it. this compressed it a created the final piece.
